Vitality seal final playoffs place: BLAST Open Porto Group Stage recap
They may have had to go through the lower bracket to do so, but Vitality secured the final place in the BLAST Open Porto playoffs, despite playing with a stand-in in jL.
They’ll now join five more star-studded teams in jetting off to Portugal, ready to battle it out for the second BLAST Open trophy of the year.
Who are those five other teams, though, and how did they earn their places?
Spirit star in Group A
As is to be expected, Spirit were the big stars. donk was in stellar form throughout, booking his team their place on the plane with three successive 2-0 victories.
They’ll be joined by FURIA, who were also impressive despite their YEKINDAR-IGL trials, and who also didn’t drop a map before losing to Spirit 2-0 in the upper bracket final.
The final team advancing from Group A is G2, who were powered through by some starring performances from their new man, r1nkle. The sniper was especially impressive against Aurora, pulling off an insane 1v4 on their 13-1 demolition of the Turkish team.
The biggest losers of the group were NAVI, who will be looking to quickly put their time in Copenhagen behind them after an early exit following losses to both M80 and G2.
MOUZ top Group B
MOUZ may have stumbled at EWC, but the BLAST Bounty champions came out on top as they advanced straight to the semis following a 2-1 victory over Falcons in the upper bracket final. They also beat Inner Circle and 9z on the route to the semis, with youngster xelex impressing with a 1.37 rating, the third-highest in the event thus far.
Falcons, however, still don’t look quite like the team that won at the IEM Cologne Major. They dropped maps in their two series wins, against Legacy and Lynn Vision, and will need to improve if they’re to add another trophy to their cabinet.
Vitality became the third and final team to advance, despite being sent down to the lower bracket with a surprising loss to Inner Circle. In true Vitality fashion, they bounced back, though, taking down 9z, Legacy, and FUT on their road to Porto.
